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But again, he was a Sahib and was at St Xavier's, and that pig Mahbub Ali ... No, he would not test Mahbub's hospitality and yet ... He thought it out alone in the dormitory, and came to the conclusion he had been unjust to Mahbub.
'I will give thee eight annas, for much money is not picked out of horses' hooves, and it must suffice for many days. As to all the rest, I am well pleased, and no further talk is needed. Make haste to learn, and in three years, or it may be less, thou wilt be an aid even to me. 'Have I been such a hindrance till now? said Kim, with a boy's giggle. 'Do not give answers, Mahbub grunted.
'I had sooner lodge with thee, Mahbub. 'Thou dost not know the honour. Lurgan Sahib himself asked for thee. Thou wilt go up the hill and along the road atop, and there thou must forget for a while that thou hast ever seen or spoken to me, Mahbub Ali, who sells horses to Creighton Sahib, whom thou dost not know. Remember this order. Kim nodded. 'Good, said he, 'and who is Lurgan Sahib?
Kim was the one soul in the world who had never told him a lie. That would have been a fatal blot on Kim's character if Mahbub had not known that to others, for his own ends or Mahbub's business, Kim could lie like an Oriental.
But Kim did not suspect that Mahbub Ali, known as one of the best horse-dealers in the Punjab, a wealthy and enterprising trader, whose caravans penetrated far and far into the Back of Beyond, was registered in one of the locked books of the Indian Survey Department as C25 IB. Twice or thrice yearly C25 would send in a little story, baldly told but most interesting, and generally it was checked by the statements of R17 and M4 quite true.
'I sell and I buy. Mahbub took a four-anna piece out of his belt and held it up. 'Eight! said Kim, mechanically following the huckster instinct of the East. Mahbub laughed, and put away the coin. 'It is too easy to deal in that market, Friend of all the World. Tell me for love. Our lives lie in each other's hand. 'Very good. I saw him in Creighton Sahib's office.
You do not laugh verree much, but you shall laugh when you are well. Now I will go straight to the railway and get out. You shall have all sorts of credits for your game. When do you come along? We are very proud of you though you gave us great frights. And especially Mahbub. 'Ay, Mahbub. And where is he? 'Selling horses in this vi-cinity, of course. 'Here! Why? Speak slowly.
'Up and down the land, as he has these three years. He seeks a River of Healing. God's curse upon all Mahbub checked himself. 'He beds down at the Temple of the Tirthankars or at Buddh Gaya when he is in from the Road. Then he goes to see the boy at the madrissah, as we know for the boy was punished for it twice or thrice. He is quite mad, but a peaceful man. I have met him.
Then Kim saw that she was blind. 'No, no, she muttered, 'the Pathan speaks truth my colour does not go in a week or a month, and those whom I protect are under strong guard. 'When one is far off and alone, it would not be well to grow blotched and leprous of a sudden, said Mahbub. 'When thou wast with me I could oversee the matter. Besides, a Pathan is a fair-skin.
An hour passed, and, with the best will in the world to keep awake all night, he slept deeply. Now and again a night train roared along the metals within twenty feet of him; but he had all the Oriental's indifference to mere noise, and it did not even weave a dream through his slumber. Mahbub was anything but asleep.
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